KAORI
by ReddAlice
Summary: Face covered in scares, bloody tar pooling at his feet. Duo Maxwell's spirit needs to mend, his past written on his outer-ghost; same goes for the others, and one person can help them; but it takes pain to repair it. -10 Part Series-


**%#%#%#%#%#%**

**K**_AO_**RI**

**B**y** -_R_edd_Alice_-**

**%#%#%#%#%#%**

**Author's Note**: Please give this fic a chance!! ^-- v  Yesiree! Bare with me while I sort out a story I've been dreaming about for months!

**Warnings**: Yaoi, Angst, General Dark fic, Use of Random Japanese (Definitions at bottom of page) 

**Disclaimer**: Shin Kidousenki New Mobile War Chronicle Gundam Wing A.C. was created by Hajime Yatate & Yoshiyuki Tomino and is licensed to Bandai Entertainment, Sunrise, and Satsu Agency. (But... _man_ I _wish_ they were mine!!!)

**Songs**: Beautiful - _Christina Agulara_, 

**%#%#%#%#%#%**

**00 **of** _1_0 - _Obsidian_**_ Daybreak_

%#%#%#%#%#%

_Oxygen, he desperately needed air to ease his smoke seared lungs. "Otoo-chan... Okaa-chan..." The small boy wheezed, his knees buckling under his emaciated body and lowering him into the snow. "Okaa-chan!" It was beyond his young mind's comprehension to appreciate his own losses, his deteriorated malnourished body, the despair that was boiling deep under the skin, or the scars he would bare for the rest of his life._

_No matter how fair or pretty his skin would become, in the mirror he would see nothing but burned flesh, and his parents features over lapping his own. The world began to haze, smudging like charcoal around the edges of his vision. "Okaa...chan..." _

_"Otoo-chan..." He coughed reaching out his small bony hand towards the end of the snow-covered alley; he'd made it so far on his frail legs to fall just short of civilization. The charismas shoppers shuffled in and out of view between the two brownstone apartment buildings, not giving the small crevice a second look, and in turn not taking notice of the small Japanese boys waning whimpers._

_His young heart fought valiantly to pump his warm blood to his frozen numb limbs, but the world proceeded to darken and trample on his naïve hopes. The hopes of a kid who had been wronged more times than not, the faith of child who wouldn't let go of his dreams, because he knew no better than the life had been dealt. _

_Just as his heavy eyelids fell over his impossibly dark sunken eyes, a rough arm swept him up out of the damp snow bruising the thin skin stretched over his ribs._

_ Two invisible but familiar men,  "Is that the one?"_

_"Yeah, this is him." Came the static reply in his ear, like the roar of the ocean in the giant shell his mother had kept on her dresser. _

_"You sure? He looks dead to me."_

_"Just toss him inside the bag, Jon, if he dies I'll just tell the boss he ran into traffic."_

_"But, Randi, he doesn't look like he got hit by a car."_

_Randi laughed, the hollow loud sound assaulting the boy's sensitive ears. "Then we'll just have to toss his corpse in front of a semi, that way... no one can tell."_

_"You're the thinker, man, I would have never thought of it."_

_"We'll that's why the boss put me in charge."_

_"Hey, Randi... look, look the kid's opening his eyes."_

_The child's unhealthily gray lips pulled up into a trembling ghost of a smile. "-Too-chan..." He cried deliriously, as he clutched feebly at the rough material of Randi's jacket. "Miataru, _Boku_ da...Miataru..." _

_"What the hell is he saying?"_

_"Fuck if I know, I don't speak that Jap shit, Jon."_

**%#%#%#%#%#%**

Time was taken for granted amongst mainstream people without collars, the civilians. They were so innocent... so clean. Kaori lets his head loll to the left, watching each person file in front of each other, and rudely snap under the pressures of the Christmas rush. 

Moments like these, so carefree, were few and far between, so when he escaped with the price of another near death experience, he didn't bother to run very far, just far enough to see the clean auras of untroubled people.

A flash of red, like a stream of sun light through the trees of a forest as you ran. A soldier perhaps, Kaori wondered following the glimpses of the soiled human, his long hair trailing behind him. _Wait_... there where two bodies winding between the throng of bodies, their spirits so darkened and stained, matching sides of a coin...

Kaori felt his breath hitch in his chest, catching on the horror that filled his chest. Burn marks? Was he burned... _no_... his loved ones... his family? His friends?

Over the past 11 years, one would think he would have become desensitized, hardened against the unspeakable images that bled over the ruined; yet nothing prepared him for the sight he beheld. Even Master Oliver's outer-ghost was not so disfigured, nor Randi's red coated skin, or Jon's thatched face... not even his own despicable reflection carried such a burden of death. 

The shorter of the two men was laughing, the lighthearted sound casting waves underneath the red tar that drained down into his snowy footprints, while his companion walked ahead his energy responsively reaching out for the other, his expression remaining aloof.

"Man Heero, you would to have had to have been there!" The braided one called after other named Heero, "I can't even _describe_ Trowa's face when I grabbed that stupid lions tail!" He shuddered a minute, his mind carrying him a way to the carnivores felines gilded cage. "I thought it was gonna _eat me_! Oi! Heero?! Are you even listening to me!" 

Heero stopped amidst the sea of citizens; his eyes anchoring to Kaori's openly horrified expression. 

**%#%#%#%#%#%**

Heero had taken notice of their watcher a few blocks back, at first he had dismissed it as simple curiosity directed at Duo, but soon the observant gaze turned wide, and fixated. As if he was being forced to eat Duo up, and was choking, but liking it, liking dying over the visual spectacle that was Duo Maxwell.

"I said, _Oi!_ Heero- Heero?" Duo fell still next to Heero, and scanned the crowed accurately to a young man off the side of an old apartment building. His heart fluttered as involuntarily as it fed his body, the man was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen; his dark red hair thick and wild about his framed face, smooth fair skin, angular features, and curiously slanted dark eyes the paralleled the depths of Wufei's. It was melancholy beauty Duo thought only dragonflies could possess during their final moments before the last drip of ice of the first frost; unholy, but completely worshipable. 

**%#%#%#%#%#%**

Now that their gaze was on him, he could clearly make out every mutilation on the braided man's tattered form. Full body burn marks, scares, stitches, blood, bruises, protruding bones, his skin dripping off into the rich red tar like liquid and pooling underneath him, below his swollen eyes....

The other was merely coated in scarlet, his soul baring the marks of murders, and faint industrial staples were repairs had been made to his past body.

Kaori smelt sulfur emanating off Master Oliver; he was only blocks away, his smell seeping around each corner and wafting into his nose. He had really done it this time of course, he would make up for every moment he was gone threefold.

**%#%#%#%#%#%**

The dark beauty across the street turned and walked towards an approaching man behind him, they exchanged harsh words before stalking off down a nondescript passageway between buildings. 

Duo wanted to run after him, but felt the mass of reason weighing on him. 

**%#%#%#%#%#%**

One made by man, One Made by machine... Kaori heard his mind narrate, but both are monsters.... _I'm a monster..._****

**%#%#%#%#%#%**

**TBC... [Next Chapter - **01 - Wings of Ruby**]**

**%#%#%#%#%#%**

**Ending Note:** Nothin' to say! Just read and give me your opinions and criticism.

**Net description: **Faces covered in scares, bloody tar pooling at his feet. Duo Maxwell is needing to heal, his past written on his outer ghost; same goes for the others, and one person can help them; but it takes pain to know it. 10 Part Series****

****Definitions****

Otoo-chan (Oh-toe) - Endearing form of father, most closely resembling Daddy

Okaa-chan (Oh-Khaa) - Endearing form of mother, most closely resembling Mommy 

Miataru (Me -ah - tah -roo) - to find/be found  [_Kaori's Japanese his broken up, he's deliriously ill and fighting for consciousness. Hey, I can't even speak colloquial English when I'm tired_!]

Boku (Bow - Koo) - Me

"Too-Chan..."-"Miataru... Boku da... Miataru."  _'Daddy...' 'Found... me... found...' or 'I'm found... found...'_


End file.
